Board of Library Trustees May 13, 2014 Minutes

Transcription

1 Board of Library Trustees May 13, 2014 Minutes Present: Karen Eggert, President Rene Cunningham Celeste Fort Martha Grahame Carolyn McHugh Terese Wells Carrie Plymire, Director Emily Mudd, Recorder Absent: JR Mathers Call to Order Meeting called to order at 2:37pm by President Eggert. Minutes Ms. Fort made a motion to approve the minutes of the April 21, 2014 meeting as disseminated electronically. Ms. Cunningham seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. President s Report The letter of closure to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) detailing the Trustee s acceptance of the appointment of Ms. Grahame and Ms. McHugh to the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) and clarifying nomination procedures going forward will be sent on May 14, Ms. Eggert is still in the process of writing up notes for Ms. Plymire s six month review and will set up a date to review them with her. Director s Report FY14 Budget: Ms. Plymire discussed the FY14 budget expenditures with the BOLT. The issues with the telephone accounts have been resolved. Maria Jolley has not spent the hardware budget but has already made her selections. Ms. Jolley will be meeting with computer consultants later this month to plan network upgrades. The project is very reasonably priced: under $5,000. The Outreach SUV wrap is being done locally for $2,499. The fine income status was reviewed. Fines collected are lower than last year at this time, and Ms. Plymire expects that they will be lower in May due to the offline period before the BOLT minutes Page 1

2 Polaris migration. The amount collected from lost items is lower than expected as well. Unique Management tells us we are getting a great return through them; they report a 6 to 1 ROI. Ms. Plymire shared that this ROI includes the $10 referral fee per customer and a discussion about possible reasons for lower receipt of lost item costs followed. Per a request from Ms. Cunningham, Ms. Plymire will provide a month by month look at lost item income similar to what the BOLT receives for Fines and Copies. Comments: Ms. Plymire shared comments from customers: The staff at the Fairview Branch was commended by a pleased customer. A customer made a complaint via Facebook message about being hurried at closing time. A Health Department staff member sent an inquiring about the Calvert Eats Local Potluck. Robyn Truslow followed up with them and was given the go ahead to proceed as usual with Calvert Eats Local potlucks as they are only open to members or invited guests of members. Marcia Hammett at Prince Frederick received an complaining about noise, specifically cell phone use around the computers. Marcia Hammett responded and offered the use of a laptop in the quiet study room. She also informed them that a librarian can speak to disruptive customers if necessary. Incident Report: A cigarette was put out on the handicap button near the Rt. 4 entrance to the Fairview Branch. Van Ireland, who works in the Visitor s Center, noticed that the mulch was smoldering after the butt fell to the ground and put a bucket of water on it. There was no visible smoke in the library but the strong smoky smell was dissipated by opening windows and doors. Accident Report: Mary Thulin had an art print fall on her head while she was volunteering at Calvert Library Twin Beaches Branch. The art was propped when the accident occurred and is now mounted on the wall. Trustee Academy: The United for Libraries courses provided by the Division of Library Development and Services (DLDS) appears to have good content. Ms. Plymire asked if the (BOLT) would be agreeable to taking one course per month and discussing the trainings at meetings. The Southern Maryland Regional Library Association (SMRLA) Board of Trustees will be taking two courses and discussing them for their July meeting. The BOLT decided to take Part 1 of the training for June and decide at that meeting if they would like to continue. Maryland ebook Consortium - Funding: Carrie Plymire gave an explanation of how the Overdrive ebook Consortium works. $37,500 is the new amount that SMRLA needs to contribute annually to participate. Ms. Plymire explained the Advantage account with Overdrive and how it speeds up hold wait BOLT minutes Page 2

3 list for our customers. Ms. Plymire reviewed the Advantage holdings within the consortium with the BOLT. She has been hearing from customers that they d like to have access to more ebooks through Overdrive. Our circulation is higher than other regional libraries but the number of Advantage titles is lower. SMRLA is committed to spending more money on ebooks, according to those who attended SMRLA Board of Trustees meetings. An exact figure is not available at this time. Kids Can Code: Ms. Plymire spoke about the SPARKS grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for which Calvert Library has applied. Harford County Public Library and Enoch Pratt Free Library are also part of this project. If received, this grant will purchase a wooden toy/computer that allow 4-7 year olds to learn the basics of coding. As with language learning, coding comes more naturally and is more intuitive if learned at a young age. We will know if we ve gotten the grant in June or July. Ms. Plymire shared a video about coding: Code The New Literacy on YouTube. Coding is part of the theme for Calvert Library in FY15. Ms. Plymire mentioned an upcoming Calvert Library training preliminarily called Library 4.0 through which staff will learn the very basics of computer coding. Ms. Plymire will send a link to the video viewed to the BOLT. Annual Program Planning Session: The planning session took place on May 2, In preparation, the Management Team reviewed Staff and Customer Surveys. The Customer Surveys show how important libraries are to those surveyed. A desire for Sunday hours is a big theme in the survey. Ms. Cunningham stated that it might be time to take this request from our customers to the BOCC. Ms. Plymire concurred and will work on packaging the request for the FY16 budget cycle this fall. Another recurring comment is unwanted noise in the library. Ms. Cunningham expressed how impressed she is with amount of Polaris training Calvert Library staff have been doing during this pre-migration period. Ms. Plymire explained the process of planning the year. She shared the idea of Full STEAM Ahead and Wiz Kids to replace some former Children s Programming. Ms. Plymire shared two big projects for FY15: Pi Day on March 14, 2015 ( ) and the Alice in Wonderland 150 th anniversary. Ms. Plymire explained the Lunch Bunch program and its great success in the Elementary Schools of Calvert County. All but five elementary schools are currently participating in this program. During a recent meeting, representatives from Calvert County Public Schools mentioned that they would like to see the program in every elementary school even if this means rotating which schools have the program each year. Ms. Plymire is currently working on creating the Annual and Event teams for FY15 and she explained staff participation on these teams to the BOLT. Edge Assessment: The Edge Assessment allows libraries to assess public technology and connect its value to the community s priorities. The goal is to provide digital literacy to the community. Ms. Plymire explained that the Edge Assessment rates value, engagement and organizational management. Calvert Library received a score of 705/1000. BOLT minutes Page 3

4 Recommendations for action are broken down to show levels of difficulty and resources needed. One way to apply the data received from this assessment would be for the reference team to look at new ideas for classes we could provide for the public. Some pieces are a matter of budgeting (software, equipment and training). Ms. Plymire will send the Edge Recommendations to the BOLT and asked that each board member pick the top 3 or 4 items that they see as community priorities to discuss them at the next meeting. Ms. Plymire has just begun to work with the results and the tools provided by the program, but she mentioned that there are packaged presentations available that can be used to share with community groups and funders. Several Maryland libraries were asked to participate in the Edge Assessment; Calvert Library is the first library in the state to take the assessment for fun. MD State Retirement and Pension Audit: The audit of the MSRP will take place on June 12 & 13, The goal is to make sure those who should be are enrolled, and vice versa. Ms. Plymire reported that she has several pieces of data to provide to the auditors in advance of the audit. Staffing Fairview and Outreach: The external job opening at Fairview brought in 29 applications. Ms. Plymire is in the process of selecting a handful to interview. Lisa Wieland is the internal applicant who was selected to fill the Outreach position. That move has opened a full-time Public Services Reference position in Prince Frederick. There are 5 internal interviews for this position scheduled for May 20, Polaris Implementation: Calvert Library staff participated in 400 hours of training in April. Polaris Offline is going well. Ms. Plymire stated that there was an issue with credit card processing. Apparently Polaris is set up to take only one PayPal account (where the old system allowed each county to use their own account.) Calvert Library proposed that their PayPal account be put into Polaris and that we will then divide the payments appropriately and send checks to St. Mary s and Charles. Ms. Plymire said that County Finance was working with us on the project and Paulita Gross will handle the accounting. This is a temporary work-around until SMRLA can find another solution. Acquisitions: Robbie McGaughran and Beverly Izzi are working on acquisitions set-up with SMRLA. The FY14 budget has been spent and customers likely will not notice that we re not ordering for two months. Between the five week backlog at SMRLA, and the titles that were pre-ordered that will continue to arrive, we will still be receiving new materials every week. The only customers who will notice that we aren t ordering as usual will be those who place a special request for purchase on the web site or place a Marina request for a new item that hasn t been ordered. We may be able to find a work-around if there are sleeper titles that turn into blockbusters. BOLT minutes Page 4

5 Check Out Your Community: Calvert County Parks and Recreation have given Calvert Library s Check Out Your Community program an ad in their summer publication. The start date for the program is June 2 nd and many local businesses and organizations have agreed to participate in addition to Parks and Rec. MLA: This year s Maryland Library Association (MLA) Conference went very well. Fourteen staff, one Trustee and four Friends of the Library attended. Ms. Plymire specifically mentioned the excellent speakers, Futurist Garry Golden in particular. Ms. Plymire is coming to the end of her term as MLA president. Miscellaneous: Baltimore County s Board of Library Trustees are experiencing some serious issues with county government. A couple of trustees are still serving even through their terms have expired because new appointments haven t been made by the County executive for some time. The County Executive also submitted a budget proposal under which three departments (28 employees) would be moved into county government. One of the departments is Information Services which supports Polaris and telephone reference among other things; their two graphic designers are also involved. Ms. Plymire will send a memo from MLA Legislative team to the BOLT giving further information. Old Business None New Business July 4, 2015 Holiday: The Independence Day holiday falls on a Saturday next year. The BOLT discussed how to handle the holiday. Calvert County government will be closing July 3, Ms. Cunningham moved that Calvert Library close on Friday, July 3 and Saturday, July 4, 2015 for the Independence Day Holiday. Ms. Wells seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Unpaid Leave Request: Megan Timmens requested unpaid leave June 2-21, 2014 to attend to family business. Ms. Wells moved to approve unpaid leave for Megan Timmens. Martha Grahame seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Reports Friends: The Friends of the Library Sidewalk Book Sale will take place on May 17, Martha Grahame reported that the Friends could use help with set-up and/or take-down. BOLT minutes Page 5

6 SMRLA: SMRLA will be increasing insurance coverage for board members to $2 million. SMRLA is acquiring new insurance for internet security, specifically to cover personal information that they hold at SMRLA. Ms. Plymire was not aware of this new insurance but stated that the two main places that Calvert Library collects personal data, the Evanced calendar where customers register for programs and Polaris, are stored on SMRLA servers so we should not have liability in this area, but she will investigate further. Ms. Plymire will also look into the D&O insurance coverage held by Calvert Library. At the last SMRLA Board meeting, Susan Grant gave a presentation about the current backlog on cataloging. They are providing a 5 week turnaround rather than their usual 5 day turn around rate. This backlog began in December. Ms. Grant reported that she hopes to be back to the 5 days by August or September. SMRLA is currently outsourcing some processing to speed up the cataloging process. Some exceptions to the backlog include best sellers with street dates and media which are processed when they are received. Ms. Grant did a benchmark study on SMRLA productivity as compared to other libraries that do processing and shared that they are above average. Ms. Grant related that the backlog could be explained by a perfect storm of incidents: retiring and sickness of highly productive staff, holidays, snow days and preparation for Polaris. Foundation: The Foundation has set a date for an Art Auction on October 25th. Announcements/Other The Staff Appreciation Brunch will take place on Friday, May 30 th and will be part meeting, part brunch. The Friends will co-sponsor the brunch with the BOLT. June 24 th is the next SMRLA orientation. Ms. McHugh and Ms. Grahame are registered to attend. A Local Author Event will take place on May 31 st at Calvert Library Prince Frederick. Over 40 authors are scheduled to participate. Ms. Cunningham requested that President Eggert contact Mr. Mathers as he has missed the last two meetings. Public Comment There was no public comment. President Eggert adjourned the meeting at 4:18pm. Next Meeting BOLT minutes Page 6

7 The next meeting will be held on June 10, 2014 at 2:00pm at Calvert Library Southern Branch. Respectfully submitted, Emily Mudd BOLT minutes Page 7